Barry Harmsen

Hi there, I'm Barry and I'm a Business Intelligence Consultant at Bitmetric and based in the Netherlands. Originally from a background of 'traditional' Data Warehousing, Business Intelligence and Performance Management, for the past few years I have been specializing in QlikView and a more user-centric form of BI. I have done numerous QlikView implementations in many different roles and industries. In 2012 I co-authored the book QlikView 11 for Developers. You can follow me on Twitter at @meneerharmsen.

As you might have guessed from some of my earlier posts, I am a sucker for popular culture from the 80’s and 90’s. On this (apparently) most-depressing day of the year, let me offer you some light hearted, positive reading and share with you five of the motivational lessons that I learned from the 1984 classic The Karate Kid. Specifically, I will tell you how these lessons can be applied to learning QlikView, increasing your skills and expanding your knowledge. Or at least make you smile.

A quick summary of the plot for those not familiar with the movie (shame on you! ):

Daniel has just moved from New Jersey to California with his mom. He quickly discovers that it isn’t as great as he thought it would be. Daniel doesn’t fit in and a gang of bullies, who are all adept at karate, are making his life miserable. He then meets Mr. Myagi, a handyman who also happens to be a karate master. Mr. Myagi takes Daniel under his wing and teaches him karate, showing him along the way that karate (and life) are not always about power and strenght. Can Daniel overcome his bullies in the All-Valley Karate Championship? (spoiler: yes he can!)

As you may know, we offer online QlikView and Qlik Sense trainings through the QlikOn Training Center. These trainings are short (4 hours max), instructor-led and focus on a single subject which will be covered in-depth. With small groups there is enough opportunity to ask as many questions as you like. A perfect way to increase your skills and knowledge.

For more information check out the QlikOn website. Are you in need of a specific training, or do you have an interesting QlikView / Qlik Sense training that you would like to deliver? Feel free to contact me to discuss.

Christmas time is near again, so it’s time for another visual effect in QlikView: the QlikFix 2014 Christmas Card. Using the trusty animated scatter plot once more, I’ve built a little spinning Christmas tree (and, in the spirit of Christmas, added some awful music ). Check the video below:

Different people have different preferences for acquiring new skills and knowledge. Some like to follow a classroom training while others prefer to start with a concrete problem, research the subject themselves and learn by doing. Some people like to read blog posts and watch videos, while others prefer to read a book. Today I have something for that last group; a reading list for QlikView and Qlik Sense professionals.

The reading list is available through this link, or via the top menu bar. It does not only contain books about QlikView or Qlik Sense, but also a range of peripheral methods, skills and technologies that I believe will make you a more well-rounded Qlik professional. I will be periodically updating this list with new and relevant books.

I hope you will enjoy this list. If there are any must-read books that you are missing, feel free to contact me through the contact form, or leave me a comment below.

A short post today, but one that will fix a very common developer annoyance in QlikView 11 and 11.2; the scroll tabs in the chart properties dialog window. When you want to change properties on tabs that are on opposing sides of the tab row (for example, Dimensions and then Layout) you first have to click the scroll arrows before you can select the tab. Extremely annoying, if you ask me.

A quick heads-up for those of you who are planning to attend the upcoming Masters Summit for QlikView in Amsterdam, the early-bird offer ends this Friday, August 15th. Don’t miss out on a $300 discount!

The multibox is a QlikView object that I find extremely useful because it allows you to fit selection fields into a much smaller space. At the same time, I also find it extremely annoying; the gradient looks dated and if you want your field names and values to be readable you will often have to make both columns quite wide. For these reasons I tend to not use the multibox in my applications, using a conditionally hidden drop-down filter panel instead.

Recently, I was hired to perform a health check on an application. The application made extensive use of a multibox (in a very nice and flexible way, I should add). One of the challenges my client was facing was that not every field was relevant to every user. Besides a general technical review of the application, the developers wanted to know if it was possible to create a dynamic multibox. A multibox where users could select which fields they want to show.

As I started digging in to this question, I realized there’s a much nicer way to create a multibox. After experimenting with it for a bit, I actually like this solution so much that I will probably be using it in some of my future projects.

“Code is read more often than it is written”

– common programming adage

As someone who often has to look at/modify QlikView script written by others, I have come to appreciate the value of readable script. Rather than taking an “if it works, it works” attitude, I always try to write my script with readability and consistency in mind. Somewhere down the line someone else (or worse, you) might have to decipher what a specific script is doing in order to modify or extend it.

Today I want to ask your opinion on the readability of a specific part of the QlikView script, indentation of aliases within LOAD statements. To this end, I’ve taken a piece of script from the QlikView System Monitor and formatted the aliases in three different ways. (note: I don’t agree with the absence of white space in functions and between operators, but have left that as is)

Have a look at the three options, and then please answer the two multiple choice questions below.

A very short tip on writing QlikView expressions that might save you a lot of headaches. In my last online training on Set Analysis (another one coming up this week) I showed a simple technique that I use when writing expressions in QlikView, especially when they contain nested functions. Based on the feedback, it seemed to resonate quite well with the attendees and not everybody was aware of this technique, so I thought I might share it with you as well.

It can simply be summarized as: Always Be Closing.

Whenever I write an expression that contains a parenthesis (or curly bracket/chevron/whatever) that also needs to be closed, I immediately close it and place the cursor one step back. Or, to show it visually (in slow mo):

This way, you’ll never need to think about how many parentheses/etc. you need to close your expression. Of course, this technique also works for Excel, SQL or any programming language.

As a follow-on tip, whenever I have to ‘decipher’ a nested expression within QlikView, I work inside-out. Start with the inner-most function, figure out what it does and what value(s) it returns, then move on to the function that uses the output of the first function, figure out what that does, and so on.

Just a quick heads-up about a new online training that Miguel García and I are offering: Set Analysis. We delivered our first training on May 2nd and received excellent ratings and feedback. We are now scheduling new sessions, the first one being held May 23rd 2014. This is a live, instructor-led, 4 hour online training. We have multiple sessions (both in English and Spanish), so you should be able to find one that fits your time zone. More information can be found on the website, or after the break.